The pale face of the mother grew paler—­she gasped—­caught for breath two or three times—­a low shudder ran through her frame—­ and then she lay white and pulseless in the arms of her husband.  As the doctor applied restoratives, I had opportunity to note more particularly the appearance of Mrs. Morgan.  Her person was very slender, and her face so attenuated that it might almost be called shadowy.  Her hair, which was a rich chestnut brown, with a slight golden lustre, had fallen from her comb, and now lay all over her neck and bosom in beautiful luxuriance.  Back from her full temples it had been smoothed away by the hand of Morgan, that all the while moved over her brow and temples with a caressing motion that I saw was unconscious, and which revealed the tenderness of feeling with which, debased as he was, he regarded the wife of his youth, and the long suffering companion of his later and evil days.  Her dress was plain and coarse, but clean and well fitting; and about her whole person was an air of neatness and taste.  She could not now be called beautiful; yet in her marred features—­ marred by suffering and grief—­were many lineaments of beauty; and much that told of a true, pure woman’s heart beating in her bosom.  Life came slowly back to the stilled heart, and it was nearly half an hour before the circle of motion was fully restored.

Then, the twain, with their child, tenderly borne in the arms of her father, went sadly homeward, leaving more than one heart heavier for their visit.

I saw more of the landlord’s wife on this occasion than before.  She had acted with a promptness and humanity that impressed me very favorably.  It was plain, from her exclamations on learning that her husband’s hand inflicted the blow that came so near destroying the child’s life, that her faith for good in the tavern-keeping experiment had never been strong.  I had already inferred as much.  Her face, the few times I had seen her, wore a troubled look; and I could never forget its expression, nor her anxious, warning voice, when she discovered Frank sipping the dregs from a glass in the bar-room.

It is rarely, I believe, that wives consent freely to the opening of taverns by their husbands; and the determination on the part of the latter to do so, is not unfrequently attended with a breach of confidence and good feeling never afterward fully healed.  Men look close to the money result; women to the moral consequences.  I doubt if there be one dram-seller in ten, between whom and his wife there exists a good understanding—­to say nothing of genuine affection.  And, in the exceptional cases, it will generally be found that the wife is as mercenary, or careless of the public good, as her husband.  I have known some women to set up grog-shops; but they were women of bad principles and worse hearts.  I remember one case, where a woman, with a sober, church-going husband, opened a dram-shop.  The husband opposed, remonstrated, begged, threatened—­but